Archive for May, 2011

Mocking Blasphemer: Tomorrow marks the failure of another biblical prophesy but anyways those who believe that they may be zapped up to heaven tomorrow.

SLIMJIM: How is it a failed bible prophecy of the bible does not say May 21 2011 is the end?

Mocking Blasphemer: Bro, the guy clearly has been a devout christian for his life, even been ordained as a pastor to preach at his church,,, so he must had devoted his whole life reading the bible avidly, doing what he suppose to,,, and he must had thought he had some sort of spiritual revelation when he finally decided to annouce his prediction to the media,,, and other numerous accounts that people had taken the bible too seriously and became scums of the society such as westboro church, and as well as the incident that transpired in Texas yrs back, a group of christians quoted from revelation believing that revelation points out the apocalyse been imminent, barricaded themselves and their children in a basement for months,,, just saying I do agree that certain passages in the bible are beneficial and all, but there are some quite elusive in particular the ones in old testament and revelation,,, you know there are people out there who just take them too seriously and may had misinterprected them thinking the passages are advocating violence.

Mocking Blasphemer: to name one there is the seven plagues in Egypt, along with the carnage of the first borns,,,, I think that passage may be fictitious reason been if god is really omnipotent, capable of creating and destroying lives, then what d…idnt he just chastised the Egyptians with 7 plagues alone, why did he had to go as far as creating those new babies in the wombs and wait till they were delivered then killed them what is trying to prove that he could take any sort of measures to instill fear in peoples’ heart, as far as killling babies… And to me it is a paradox especially when u continued to other passages, and those other ones just depicted him as a loving, merciful, and caring I leave that to you bro

SLIMJIM: I love you dearly which makes this more painful to say but I think when people become atheists it seems they get more irrational than rational. I think if I’ve saved all our conversations with all the logical fallacies you’ve committed… I can make a short text book on logical fallacies. If you are going to call this another failed biblical prophecy the burden of proof is on you to show where May 21st, 2011 appear in the Bible as a rebutting defeater towards my claim that the Bible does not give this date! This is your rational obligation upon you to back your claim. Rather than take this direction you went ahead to commit an ad hominem fallacy which I quote in follows: “bro, the guy clearly has been a devout christian for his life, even been ordained as a pastor to preach at his church,,, so he must had devoted his whole life reading the bible avidly, doing what he suppose to,,, and he must had thought he had some sort of spiritual revelation when he finally decided to annouce his prediction to the media,,,” What an ad hominem fallacy is when an argument is given for a conclusion based on a premise or set of premises concerning the individual character when it’s irrelevant to the conclusion or subject at hand. Assuming for the sake of argument that it’s true that Harold Camping (the name of the leader of Family Radio, behind this false prophecy) is a devout christian, reads his bible and is an ordained minister…that tells us alot about Harold Camping but not about the date May 21st, 2011 is in the bible! Moreover, I think atheists need to do their homework if they are going to go beyond superficial objections towards Christianity by using silly easy targets like Camping and Westboro (another fallacy committed, of bandwagoning entirety of CHristianity with those fellows…I don’t seem to recall in all my years of talking to hundreds of atheists that they like it when Hitler and Stalin are bandwagoned with their own fellow atheists). It is indicative of atheistic scholarship when they fail to do their homework. Camping is not an ordained minister, he’s left the church I believe in 1988 and since taught that God has left the church when he left the church also (he thinks he took the Holy Spirit along with him the day he stepped out of it). i question your assertion that this guy love to read the Bible or is knowledgeable of it having spent the last couple of weeks listening to audios of him where he can’t answer some very basic questions of Christianity. He might be a nice guy but Camping is not a good person (even then, that is not enough to prove the May 21st date) according to the Biblical framework. The Bible makes it clear that there are false prophets out there and one tests of it is whether or not their pophecies fail. False prophets do not represents Christianity or God, why have a “rational” atheist like you suddenly lose your sense of discernment? Camping made a false prophecy in 1994 and the Bible says that no one should hear someone who claims to make a prophecy that has failed. In Biblical categories, such a person is not a good person despite people’s appeal that “oh, he reads his bible”…to speak when God has not spoken in His Word is to actually be quite arrogant and full of him or herself.
Concerning God’s judgment upon Egypt, I think here you are making a red herring fallacy from my main contention of your assertion that May 21st is a failed biblical prophecy. Since this is a red herring from the topic at hand, I don’t think I’m obligated to address it. But that is not to say that there’s no answer to the alleged dilemma you raised. I think a treatment of it requires more time and length than what I’ve already given! Speaking of which, I’ve just taught our middle school Sunday school kids last week interacting with alleged moral problems in the Bible that atheists give (specifically we evaluated Bertrand Russell as a case study). You should come by and ask them your objections I’d like to see that! But I understand, you don’t want to go to church. All that is to say, it’s not a problem when we discuss your dillemma not in a vaccuum but bring in the entire package of philosophy of ethics, meta-ethics. I’m often sadden at how people who are so bright can be so simple and foolish when it comes to the discussion of worldview and religion and import almost first grade sunday school understanding of Christianity when they refute it.

I’ve been blogging about the false prophecy of the world ending on May 21st the last couple of days, seeing how big of a deception this is spreading on the internet at first rather briefly but then I realize I might have to expand a bit concerning this topic.

I want to pick up where I left off with last evening’s post, critiquing his view that the Bible does teach when the world will end. Here in this current post, I wish to examine his claim of how there are things “hidden” in the Bible such as when the world will end that has only been recently revealed. This teaching is problematic, but it’s fair to examine a paragraph from their tract “No Man Knows the Day or the Hour?” Speaking of the Bible, it states:

However, God wrote it in such a way that it could not be understood until the world was almost at its end. Remember understanding comes only from the Lord Jesus Christ, as we read in Luke 34:45: ‘Then opened He their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures.’ This explains why the Bible is written in such complex and difficult-to-understand language. It is one reason why Christ spoke in parables, even as we read in Mark 4:34: ‘But without a parable spake He not unto them.’

I think the burden of proof is on this movement to demonstrate that the BIble teaches that secrets of when the date of end times won’t be discovered in the Bible until when the end times get closer. Morever, it goes against the spirit of Jude 3 (read the passage), which teaches the principle that in terms of Christian doctrine, “IF IT’S NEW, IT CANNOT BE TRUE; IF’S IT’S TRUE, IT CANNOT BE NEW.” One would also challenge the paragraph’s point that the Bible is so complex with difficult to understand languages ( I don’t think it’s that difficult although good interpretation does involve hard work! But it’s not that complex really).

The paragraph also appealed to Mark 4:34 of how the Bible has been able to hide the date of the end of the world until now. The verse is pulled out of it’s context and does not lend support towards Harold Camping’s view that the date of the end of the World is in the Bible but hidden until now. First off, Mark 4:34 is not talking about the hiding of the date of the end times. Nor is the passage teaching that the date of May 21st was hidden from Christians until the end times approaches. In the context, what Jesus speaks plainly to his disciples about instead of parables was concerning the nature of the kingdom of God, not the date of the end of the world. It’s rather strange what Camping and his followers come up with.

I got a tract sometime back from someone who followed Harold Camping’s Family Radio. Camping’s group is behind the false prophecy that the world will end on May 21st, 2011.

It is a strange to think that Camping would make a prediction like this that goes contrary to the Word of God.

Jesus said in Matthew 24:36:

But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.

It was a point important to Jesus that He repeats Himself in Matthew 25:13:

Be on the alert then, for you do not know the day nor the hour.

What is even more strange is that Family Radio is aware of these verses since they have produced a tract titled, “No MAN KNOWS THE DAY OR THE HOUR?” in response to Jesus’ clear teaching. The tract states,

However, it was not until a very few years ago that the accurate knowledge of the entire timeline of history was revealed to true believers by God from the Bible.

As to how Camping and his followers came to this accurate knowledge is not stated. Camping believes that Ecclesiastes 8:5 teaches how true believers today will know in their hearts the true timing of Christ’s return. Ecclesiastes 8:5 states

The one who keeps a command does not know bad matter, and a time and judgment the heart of the wise knows (Personal translation from the Hebrew)

It is odd that Camping would turn to Ecclesiastes 8:5 to find support for “true believers” able to know the date of the end of the world. This is not supported by the context. For one thing, Ecclesiastes 8:5 and Ecclesiastes 8 says nothing about the timing of the end times. Secondly, this verse is pulled out of a context in Ecclesiastes that talks about the limitation of human knowledge, especially when it comes to the future. Note what Ecclesiastes 8:7 ask rhetorically, in the context which talks about man’s limitation (cf. verse 8 which discuss limitation of man’s power):

For no one knows ‘what will be?’ for what will be who tells to him?

Ecclesiastes 8:5 is probably not a good proof text in light of the context for Camping’s eschatological agenda. The verse itself, if it has any bearing to knowledge of the end times seems to be consistent with the spirit of Jesus’ teaching that man does not know the future.

The tract goes on to assert,

Therefore, since it was not God’s plan to open anyone’s understanding of many truths of the Bible until very near the time of the end of the world, it is only now that exceedingly important Biblical truths are being understood. The Bible tells us that this was going to happen.

Note that the last sentence in the quote says the Bible tells us this was going to happen. The burden of proof will be on Camping to offer a verse that teaches his specific assertion that truths such as “the time of the end of the world will be discovered in the Bible when the end time gets closer.”

Those who are confused should take Jesus’ warning seriously. I have talked to a gentleman who have talked to me in fear thinking May 21st, 2011 was really the end. He lived his life seriously, suddenly all the truths of Christianity that I ever told him became important. Sadly, it takes the fear of God’s coming back soon to wake him up about his moral life. THE truth also need to told that Jesus’ point of how the time and hour is unknown means that He can come back any moment even earlier than May 21st, 2011. ONE’s LIFE should change knowing that any moment the End can begin. It should lead people to true repentance to God, which include submitting to what His Word says instead of what His Word did not say.